The WaPo ombudsman has a puzzling and meandering piece on the paper's coverage of Wright.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102858.html?nav=rss_print/outlook>Wrong on Wright
She admits the editors turned down two pitches to do a piece on him; that others had written about him months--even years ago; that the IT video clips pushed the story; that the paper had utterly failed to report that McCain had repudiated Hagee's anti-Catholic remarks;and had never mentioned that Hill's Methodist church was active in the divestment from Israel movement.

Apparently it’s going to be another very bad week for Obama. First a campaign aide compares Bill Clinton to Joe McCarthy, then it turns out that the road of whodunit on the passport peekaboo leads right back to his door.

Sorry for injecting a political note into this happy day--and sorry if I'm repeating anyone else. The quote is from MacRanger:

I don't know if that is possible, but Richardson had a "cheat sheet" during his endorsement announcement where at some point it said
"turn left and smile at Obama". Conversely maybe Obama had one that said "now smile at the groveling little sycophant".

Steve Sailer has dug up a rabble rousing speech of Obama's that mentions the Jena 6 incident: Obama on the Jena 6. The blog is a good read, and Sailer quotes some eye opening policy proposals:

It reminds us that we have a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting civil rights violations is trying to rollback affirmative action programs at our college and universities; a Justice Department whose idea of prosecuting voting rights violations is to look for voting fraud in black and Latino communities where it doesn't exist. ...

I don't want to be standing here and talking about another Jena four years from now because we didn't have the courage to act today. I don't want this to be another issue that ends up being ignored once the cameras are turned off and the headlines disappear. It's time to seek a new dawn of justice in America.

From the day I take office as President, America will have a Justice Department that is truly dedicated to the work it began in the days after Little Rock. I will rid the department of ideologues and political cronies, and for the first time in eight years, the Civil Rights Division will actually be staffed with civil rights lawyers who prosecute civil rights violations, and employment discrimination, and hate crimes. And we'll have a Voting Rights Section that actually defends the right of every American to vote without deception or intimidation. When flyers are placed in our neighborhoods telling people to vote on the wrong day, that won't only be an injustice, it will be a crime.

As President, I will also work every day to ensure that this country has a criminal justice system that inspires trust and confidence in every American, regardless of age, or race, or background. There's no reason that every single person accused of a crime shouldn't have a qualified public attorney to defend them. We'll recruit more public defenders to the profession by forgiving college and law school loans - and I will ask some of the brilliant minds here at Howard to take advantage of that offer. There's also no reason we can't pass a racial profiling law like I did in Illinois, or encourage state to reform the death penalty so that innocent people do not end up on death row.

At one point during Obama’s 2003 Senate campaign, Jones set out to woo two African-American politicians miffed by Obama’s presumption and ambition. One of them, Rickey “Hollywood” Hendon, a state senator, had scoffed that Obama was so ambitious he would run for “king of the world” if the position were vacant.

When Jones secured the two men’s support, Obama asked his mentor how he had pulled it off. “I made them an offer,” Jones said in mock-mafioso style. “And you don’t want to know.”

Deborah Howell, to her credit, has been a very aggressive and explicit critic of the Post's reporting. No Hoytian temporizing/equivocating from her. Something that angers the liberal bloggers who, from what I can tell, loathe her.

Howell is good but she's wrong about Wright burying the canard that Obama is a closet Muslim. Who hates America more, people like Wright, or radical Muslims? And don't they hate similarly for the same sort of reasons?

This festers, and Obama prescribed an ineffective antibiotic, instead of lancing the pus.
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Well, in this piece you have to slog on and read between the lines to get her drift. Not to speak of the loony tunes letter from a reader she quotes--lately BTW all the Post letters to the editors seem to have been written by lobatamized Clinton or Obamabots.

Why not come out and say it--(a) we covered up this hot story to help Obama;(b) we failed to report accurately on McCain to his disadvantage, and (c) we treated Clinton differently than we did Romney but like we did with Wright-Obama , and to her advantage,too?

Charlotte Griffin was at a restaurant one evening when a white woman complimented her on her children's behavior. The stranger may have meant to be kind. But Griffin wondered if she heard a note of condescension -- an assumption, perhaps, that black kids aren't usually so polite.

eeenteresting. And in Don's comments, there is a Betsy who implores us to watch the Rev. Wright's sermon "in context".

Hey, that makes sense, Don has a widely trafficked blog, she thinks context makes a difference. (yeah, I sat through the 9+ minutes, but still can't see any way around the chickens comment being his own, whether borrowed or not, he was very proud of the comment and very approving)

But "Betsy" also left a comment at mine. A, shall we say, lesser trafficked one.

Methinks she's just googling key words and posting her shtick on anything that comes up.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's better than the t-shirt peddlers that have started finding me as well.

I do like the way Howell just slipped in the McCain part:McCain's spiritual leaders?" John McCain has been supported by conservative ministers who also have said some controversial things. And The Post hasn't reported in print that McCain has repudiated some views of supporter John Hagee, an evangelist, that were perceived as anti-Catholic.

The 'And' makes it seem like it's going in a different direction, and then she suddenly sneaks in a kind of defense of McCain. Almost like she still wants to hide that little fact.

(What does it say about me that I don't know the proper adjective for the latter? Fond thoughts, however ineptly expressed, for those who celebrate it.)

It's a wonderful day here--the floodwaters are receding, the snowfall was pretty* without any accumulation, and it is She Who Deserves A New Coach Handbag After Lo These Many Years of Making Do With Far Too Few's birthday.

It's good to be back (at least until Lacerte beckons again tomorrow).

*Some wag said "I think I saw Santa Claus giving the Easter Bunny a ride in his sleigh this morning."

"She'd always thought of Conyers as a nice place to raise a family, with a slow-paced lifestyle and some pretty good schools. But lower-income blacks have begun to move in from central Atlanta, Griffin said, bringing crime and blight. Whites have started moving out. Griffin, 36, blames that on racism. Then she admits she's not comfortable, either, with what Conyers is becoming. The new black arrivals are dragging down the quality of life. Sometimes, she said, "even I want to move out."
............................................
Griffin thinks white flight is racist, but she's tempted to flee too? I don't get it.

Yes, MayBee. That's my point. It's like Cher's character in Moonstruck said in confession (approximation) "I took the lord's name in vain, I slept with my fiance's brother, I didn't honor my father and mother,."

Early reports are that Wright's replacement continues with inflammatory remarks. It will be interesting to see if Obama continues to attend. He risks being filmed sitting on his hands while hate speech flows from the pulpit.

He, and the new pastor are in a tight spot. If the tone ratchets down, the pastor is hypocritical. If the tone doesn't, as it appears, then Obama is damned if he goes to church, and damned if he doesn't.

Interesting, that he may feel political remorse for something he feels no spiritual remorse for. Well, that's what you get for being a racist.
==================

It is one thing to expect such demagoguery from a "James Brown" school of ministry like Sharpton, but from a graduate of the
prestigious U Chicago Theological Seminary;
like Wright is even more unforgivable. I know it's a naive expectation to believe this; Romans as white, instead of Western; some bizarre implied analogue to the US
(remember this was before troops were even in Afghanistan or Iraq)AIDS was spread by
the medically illiterate, politically correct failure of basic containment protocols in San Francisco & Greenwich
Village)Read or watch "And the Band Played
On" for the disturbing, and altogether
preventable details. Predictably, one of the major players in that disaster;S.F.
public health commissioner Mervyn Silverman would become the head of the leading AIDS charity. In the land of the
one eyed king. . .

On a similar note, was this coloquouy between genocide chronicler Samantha Powers,
(formerly part of the Obama brain trust)
and Azar Nafisi. Powers, was going on about
her latest subject, the late UN envoy Sergio
de Viera, blown up by suicide bombers, some
4 1/2 years ago. He lit up at the
recollection of the then student's visceral
anti-Americanism picked up at the Paris riots in '67. You would think that after all these years, one would have learned some
perspective at who the real enemy is nowaday. but no such luck. Nafisi, nodded at Powers went on at her dissapointment with the Administration's refusal to dialogue with Ahmadinejad (topics of conversation; did the Holocaust happen? why do you want to bring about another one; why are there no homosexuals in Iran?) because it apparently makes us not Ahmadinejad, the problem; WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

Over on another thread people have been suggesting that I don't know how to link. Obviously not true, but just to put that nasty rumor to rest: Benedict's Easter Vigil Homily And Baptism. That's a little confusing--Hewitt is not referring to Benedict's baptism but rather to the Egyptian convert's baptism, the one that's been in the news.

6 posts since you found out Rove reads the site, and 2 of them are titled "It's Good to be Rich" and "There's No Reason Iraq Shouldn't be a Walkover". Way to know your audience, TM.

[L]ower-income blacks have begun to move in from central Atlanta, Griffin said, bringing crime and blight. How does she know it's low-income blacks? Maybe the crime and blight come from white women, and to cover their guilt they compliment any decently behaved black child they see.

[B]elated Passover wishes.

What does it say about me that I don't know the proper adjective - how about, "way to stick it to the Egyptians, Hebrews"?

See, now that's marketing. I admit I've never looked, but it would be cool if they went for the kosher certification.

On the Wright subject, I had several friends who attended Glide Memorial. (I volunteered there for several years myself.) The long-time preacher (Cecil Williams) retired recently and the new preacher is more of the "afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted" than "love your neighbor" school of thought.

They worry that it is less inclusive, more radical and - although they wince to say it - racially divisive ... That's no insult to Guest. He would probably agree ... Asked if he thought he was excluding the white members of the church, Guest gave a blunt response. "No," he said, "but I do think white people are used to calling things on their own terms. That's the problem when people become wealthy and powerful and successful."

Pelosi's and Feinstein's husbands have been teamed up (with the Shorensteins) for the "Bleach San Francisco" effort for years. Glide was a vey interesting and well focused church, intent upon actually delivering social services in keeping with its professed "social gospel" message. The San Francisco Bleach Job is going to make it tough for any pastor to deliver in the manner which Williams (a very decent man) did. Bringing in a BLT (and no damn mayo) man doesn't seem a wise decision.

Obama: *****We'll recruit more public defenders to the profession by forgiving college and law school loans*****

Whew! Do Barry and Michelle have a thing about paying off college loans or what?! I don't know how much they owed, but the median loan payment for a private college is less than half the average monthly car loan payment. So, big deal! you ingrates.

Don't know where else to put this--captured FARC pc shows contacts with Cong James McGovern(D Ma) and FARC, suggesting those opposing free trade agreement with beleagured Colombia are doing so because of ties to the rebels who they want to win.

Hell Mandela was dreadfully incompetent. Ditto Mugabe. Look where that has taken those two places. I dont think Venezuelans want to go there, and I dont think we should be so disinterested especially if an ass like McGovern is actively playing for the other team. Maybe just me though, strange as that may be.

Reources aren't endless--Jerks like Chavez and Mugabe destroy their countries' economies which the rest of us eventually have to bail out-and rarely are what's left capable of total regeneration.
The men who took over in a coup and failed to kill Chavez were idiots. If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

It's probably better that Chavez has been failing utterly and totally in full public view, rather than having been martyred in a coup. Venezuala, unlike Zimbabwe, has institutons that have kept their independence, and the country will survive Chavez. What it learns from the ongoing fiasco may be the basis of a successful democracy (like that in Chile and Brazil) in years to come.

They had a successful democracy for years, and might still had one if that ass Carter did not put his goodhousekeeping seal of approval on what many ancillary reports say was a ballot box stuffing fiasco. Why is it always Democrats peeing in the breakfast bowl?

What it learns from the ongoing fiasco may be the basis of a successful democracy (like that in Chile and Brazil) in years to come.

The most enduring lessons are the hard lessons. Look at Chile's past, or better yet, look at the reaction to totalitarianism that Eastern Europe underwent. No greater lovers of capitalism and democracy than they.

Gotcha. When you think back on the last six years, it really is amazing the breadth of the foreign policy change that has taken place.

And in the context of trade relations, I believe you are correct. We beat this little turd by helping SA countries to do for themselves, rather than accept handouts from their Venezuelan sugar daddy in return for their support of socialist governments.

Also I was most gratified by your usage, in another thread, of the phrase "Roger that."